Dust of Dreams

you do. My children, be brave this day. See your father, and know that he is proud of you all.
    The foremost line of demons began preparing strange clubs.
    ______
    Hedge saw the lightning erupt from the Nah’ruk line, saw the jagged bolts tear into the mass of Khundryl warriors. The charge seemed to disintegrate inside a horrific cloud of red mist.
    Sickened, he twisted on to his back, stared up at the sky. Didn’t look like sky at all. ‘Bridgeburners, get ready! Munitions in hand! One, two, three—
UP
!’
     
    Brys had thought the bodies lying on the ground ahead were corpses. They suddenly rose, forty or fifty in all, and flung objects at the front line of Nah’ruk. The small dark grenados splashed as they struck the enemy warriors. An instant later, the Nah’ruk who had been struck began writhing as the liquid ate through their armour, and then their hides.
    One of the nodes exploded, flinging bodies back. Then another and another. All at once the front ranks of the phalanx were a chaotic mess.
    Brys turned to his signaller. ‘Sound the charge! Sound the charge!’
    Horns blared.
    The legions broke into a dog-trot, pikes levelled.
    The sappers were running, swinging to the left and out from the gap between the two forces. They might just make it clear in time.
    At six paces, the Letherii ranks surged forward, voices lifting in a savage roar.
    The teeth of the saw bit deep, one, three rows, four. The Nah’ruk phalanx buckled. And then the two forces ground to a halt. Pikes were held in place, infighters armed with axes and stabbing swords pushing between the front line to begin their vicious close work. Falchions flashed high, and then descended.
    Brys gestured. Another messenger came up alongside him.
    ‘The onager and arbalest units are to draw up on the hill to the east. Begin enfilade. Cavalry to provide initial screen until they commence firing.’
    The man saluted and rode off.
    Brys looked southeastward. Miraculously, some remnant of the mounted horse-warriors had survived the sorcerous salvos—he could see riders emerging from the dust and smoke, hammering wildly into the front ranks of the Nah’ruk. They struck with inhuman ferocity and Brys was not surprised—to have come through that would have stripped the sanity of any warrior.
    He breathed a soft prayer for them in the name of a dozen long-lost gods.
    A messenger reined in on his right. ‘Commander! The west legions have engaged the enemy.’
    ‘And?’
    The man wiped the sweat from his face. ‘Knocked ’em back a step or two, but now . . .’
    Seeing that he could not go on, seeing that he was near tears, Brys simply nodded. He turned to study what he could see of the Malazan position.
    Nothing but armoured lizards, weapons lifting and descending, blood rising in a mist.
    But, as he stared, he noticed something.
    The Nah’ruk were no longer advancing.
    You stopped them? Blood of the gods, what manner of soldiers are you?
     
    The heavy infantry stood. The heavy infantry held the trench. Even as they died, they backed not a single step. The Nah’ruk clawed for purchase on the blood-soaked mud of the berm. Iron chewed into them. Halberds slammed down, rebounded from shields. Reptilian bodies reeled back, blocking the advance of rear ranks. Arrows and quarrels poured into the foe from positions behind the trench.
    And from above, Locqui Wyval descended by the score, in a frenzy, to tear and rend the helmed heads of the lizard warriors. Others quickly closed to do battle with their kin, and the sky rained blood.
     
    Bottle’s soul leapt from body to body, grasped tight the souls of Locqui Wyval, and flung them down upon the Nah’ruk. As each one was pulled down to the slaughter, he tore himself free to enslave yet another. He had reached out, taking as many as he could—dozens of the creatures—the stench of blood and all that they saw had driven them mad. He needed only crush the tatters of their restraint, loose them upon the nearest beasts that were not wyval.
    When kin attacked, he did not resist—
the more dead and dying wyval, the better.
    But he felt himself being torn apart. He felt his mind shredding away. He could not do much more of this. Yet Bottle did not relent.
     
    Tarr stumbled into a knot of marines. Glared round. ‘Limp—where’s your—’
    ‘Dead,’ Limp said. ‘Just me an’ Crump—’
    ‘Ruffle?’
    The round-faced woman shook her head. ‘Got separated. Saw Skim die, that’s all—’
    ‘So